Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd of October at the Barnsley Metrodomethen Sunday 27th of October - Wednesday 3rd of November in Chengdu, China

The second staging of the International Championship from Chengdu, China and Judd Trump will be defending his title against a host of Top Players, World no 1 Neil Robertson, UK and Masters Champion Mark Selby, Shanghai Masters Champion Ding Junhui and also the International Championship sees Ronnie O'Sullivan return to Main Ranking Event snooker for the first time since the capture of his 5th World Championship in early may.

Also playing are 5 players that's not on the Main Tour Darren Cook, Rhys Clark, Darryl Hill, Mitchell Travis and Oliver Brown Can one of them win their opening match and make the trip to Chengdu?

3-1 to Ronnie at the MSI, as Wild said, it could have been even 4 nil either way as all the frames have been close, particularly the first and the third both finishing on the final black, with Joel winning the third. Joel though will have to cut on some basic mistakes if he is to win this match, which quite honestly I don't think he can.

Ronnie wins pretty confortably 6-1, wasn't vintage stuff by any means, the highlight being two 73 breaks in the 2nd and last frame by Ronnie, Joel had his chances especially before MSI but couldn't take them. Ronnie gets the job done in the end.

If both Jimmy and Steve were to win their Last 64 matches at the venue they would play each other in the next round, though both have tough matches, Steve against Stedman and especially Jimmy has his work cut out against Hawkins, a tall oder for him these days.

Think Advani is at a crossroads and has to properly focus on snooker, billiards is his sport but he can fall back in that in later years. He ought to fully dedicate to snooker and maximise his potential which is undoubted.

Witz78 wrote:Think Advani is at a crossroads and has to properly focus on snooker, billiards is his sport but he can fall back in that in later years. He ought to fully dedicate to snooker and maximise his potential which is undoubted.

Yes agree with you Witz, having made such a hard work to qualify to a venue only to withdraw later on due to a clash with the Billiards Championship is pretty harsh on him so I too think he should fully dedicate himself to snooker now while he can still play at his best because he has achieved pretty much everything in the Billiards.

A bit like Selby too when he was playing pool and won a championship I think back in 2006.